"The myth that Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong is one of those zombie myths that always keeps coming back even after you chop its head off time and time again. The newest incarnation of this myth comes from Jan-Erik Solheim, who in a 272 word article promoted by Fritz Vahrenholt and Sebastian Lüning (translated by the usual climate denial enablers here) manages to make several simple errors which we will detail here."
So begins Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988, by SkS's most prolific myth-buster, Dana. As to be expected, this article has generated the most comments of the articles posted this past week.
Source: Stephanie McMillan, Code Green.
"The disconnect between politics and climate change is especially pronounced in America, where the fossil-fuel lobby is entrenched and aggressive, with a history of bending the facts and winning elections, and where one of the two major political parties has taken the shameful ostrich position that all the world’s climate scientists are simply wrong."
Source: "The planet still groans, not that we'd hear it", Commentary by James Lenfeskey, StarTribune (Minneapolis, MN), June 21, 2012.
Should SkS increase its coverage of the science of renewable energy?
Albedo: The fraction of solar radiation reflected by a surface or object, often expressed as a percentage. Snow-covered surfaces have a high albedo, the surface albedo of soils ranges from high to low, and vegetation-covered surfaces and oceans have a low albedo. The Earth’s planetary albedo varies mainly through varying cloudiness, snow, ice, leaf area and land cover changes.
Albedo feedback:A climate feedback involving changes in the Earth’s albedo. It usually refers to changes in the cryosphere, which has an albedo much larger (~0.8) than the average planetary albedo (~0.3). In a warming climate, it is anticipated that the cryosphere would shrink, the Earth’s overall albedo would decrease and more solar radiation would be absorbed to warm the Earth still further.
Source: Annex I (Glossary) to Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
A complete listing of the articles posted on SkS during the past week.
A list of articles that are in the SkS pipeline. Most of these articles, but not necessarily all, will be posted during the week.
Dana's Simply Wrong: Jan-Erik Solheim on Hansen 1988 was re-posted on What's Up With That Watts?.
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Posted by John Hartz on Monday, 25 June, 2012
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